Exhibitions

9.10.2004 — 2.1.2005

Simone Decker – Point of view

artist(s): Simone Decker

curator(s): Enrico Lunghi

From 9 October 2004 to 2 January 2005, Casino Luxembourg is holding an exhibition of Simone Decker's works produced between 1999 and 2004. This will be the first major solo show of this Luxembourg artist's work, which has been shown at several international exhibitions in recent years, as well as at the 48th Venice Biennale.

After her To be expected project at the Casino Luxembourg in 1998, which consisted essentially of "life-size" takeovers of the exhibition spaces, Simone Decker's approach has been directed mainly towards spatial interventions, some quite large, others smaller: the motifs, which take as their backdrop squares, landscapes, and even whole cities, appear to be optically oversized, because of the illusion of scale permitted by the use of the photographic lens.

The Pavillons pour Saint-Nazaire series (1999) is symbolic of this change. While the Pavillon de chasse (1998) actually filled the entrance hall of the Casino Luxembourg throughout the exhibition and operated like a real trap for the viewers, the Pavillons pour Saint-Nazaire were the outcome of the application of the rules of linear perspective, which have established that an object in the foreground is larger than objects in the background. It is in fact the entire process of execution that counts for Simone Decker, from the choice of the place to the choice of materials by way of the physical time involved by her work: if the actual technique of photography is vital to the creation of the work, the final photograph likewise becomes its document.

The Chewing and Folding Projects (1999) shown at the 48th Venice Biennale condensed all these concerns into an intervention which took up the whole space of La Serenissma, as well as the Luxembourg pavilion itself as subject and object. In the photographic series, sculptures made of chewing gum fill the byways and squares of Venice; there is no make-believe, what is involved really is a huge outdoor exhibition, whose visual reality, however, is given by the photographic lens. On the other hand, the Prototypes pour un espace infini (1999) perpetuated the artist's attempts to tame the space and make it a ready-to-wear object.

The motifs and materials used by Simone Decker forever waver between seduction and repulsion, and may also be extended to living beings, as in Jeremy (2000), or become narration as in Le va-et-vient du Mont Saint-Watou (2001), or Recently in Arnhem (2001) which combines both elements. In tandem, Simone Decker also uses light and fabric to destabilise the space and its perception, especially in so weiß, weißer geht's nicht (2001) and curtain wall (2002), a project produced for the Printemps de Septembre in Toulouse.

The exhibition will also present a series of new works: Denise (this will be the title on 9 October: every day this piece takes on the name of the patronymic saint) is an elongated and flexible spatial element made of fabric which will fill the Aquarium of the Casino Luxembourg (shown for the first time as part of the project Re:Location Shake at the Jan Koniarek Gallery in Trnava (SK) in June 2004); the Ghosts, kinds of spirits of public sculptures in the city of Luxembourg enlivening one of the façades of the building and its cellars, a couple of full moons, a video screened in a specially designed optical apparatus, and NY-space, a more elaborate and private re-actualisation of infinite space.

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